Cheap Eats – Strategy

I’ve been researching how to put together nutritious meals for the family without breaking the budget. Google “cheap homemade meals” and a number of recipes comes up. I gleaned the sites looking for commonalities.

Broken down into macros each meal is comprised of protein, carbs and vegetables.

Protein

You can reduce your price per oz by going for the less popular cuts of meat. Chicken thighs, pork chops, beef chuck, etc. These are still reasonable when buying organic/free range. Oddly enough, ground turkey is an awesome alternative to beef for health and your budget.

Carbs

Carbs are too often demonized. Like anything moderation is key, and on a budget moderation is a necessity. The key here is buying bulk goods and taking the extra time to cook dried goods.

Kim found a 2lb bag of brown rice for $0.75 after coupon. HEB has an awesome bulk isle with a lot of good options… Israeli Cous Cous, Bulger Wheat, Lentils, etc. Get creative with the fillers.

We buy the fillers in bulk, then eat from our supply until it is entirely gone. This way it all gets eaten, even if it takes a week to work through a giant bag of dried pinto beans!

Vegetables

We buy protein a week at a time, carbs every 2 weeks and vegetables are purchased almost daily for freshness. At this point, we have no strategy with vegetables as we buy what we need and mostly organic. I’ll pick a roma tomato over a vine tomato, but that’s about it. More to come in this section.

Once you have these three items in the house it’s a matter of being creative and mixing them together so you ensure you nothing is wasted in the fridge. Use easy meal spice packets to help out, have fun and stay healthy.